These photos were all taken around Fuerte Tiuna, a huge park and monument near the Banderas bus station in Caracas. This is where the Military Academy is based, the location where Hugo Chavez’s body was in display following his passing on Tuesday 5th March. His coffin arrived at the academy on Wednesday, followed by a parade of people which put Caracas to a standstill. In the first few days of his coffin being on display over 2 million Venezuelans arrived to see their former President, with a queue that has been estimated at 7km long. In total, his body was on display for 10 days before being moved to the Military Museum on the evening of Friday 15th March.

The quantity of Chavez memorabilia is quite incredible…

Free water, oranges and juice were handed out to the people in the queue.

I met Waes on a bus going from the Colombian border to San Cristobal, a smallish Venezuelan town that acts as a gateway into the country. He moved here with his family quite a few years ago as he couldn’t pay for his mother’s medical bills in Colombia. In Venezuela even special treatment is much cheaper. He doesn’t agree with everything that Chavez has done – such as appropriation – but he feels he has undoubtedly done more good than bad. It’s for certain that he wouldn’t be able to dream about owning his own import/export business if he had had to pay for his mother’s treatment.

About

On The Road to Find Out is a blog all about South America which I started in March 2009 upon landing in Rio de Janeiro, and which includes stories from my travels in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay.

As well as these travel stories, you will hopefully also get to understand my obsessions with food, football and music, all of which go hand-in-hand with travelling around South America, on a journey which has no end in sight yet.